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Panasonic has released the supposedly first portable Blu-ray Disc Player. The DMP-B15K has an 8.9-inch WSVGA LCD Screen, a PHL Reference Chroma Processor Plus, 2 1/2 hours battery life, a built-in LAN port and can playback photos. With its signature Viera Cast, it can handle Internet content such as Amazon VOD, YouTube and Google. Nice as the player looks, you might want to wait for the next generation, as the DMP-B15K will set you back $799.99.

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While most discs can hold about 5GB data now, researchers from the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia have created five dimensional discs that can hold 2,000 times that amount. The team created the 10TB disc with a color dimension that uses nanoparticles that react to light according to shape, so that information can be recorded on different wavelengths. Polarization was also applied for recording layers of data. While there are still issues to work out, they foresee the discs in the market in the next 5 to 10 years. That will give us all time to save up the money to buy that much data in one disc.

Red2Blu will take your old Warner Bros. HD DVDs and for $4.95 each (as well as shipping and handling) they will exchange them for Blu-ray discs. You simply mail the original to their processing center, and you will receive your new disc in 4 to 5 weeks. Check out the WBshop to find out what titles are available, as well as a listing of newly released ones.

Epson has hopped on the Blu-ray express with the Endeavor. They have announced an upgraded desktop ST120 with a Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz), 1GB of RAM, 80GB HDD and a Blu-ray burner. It also features Digital TV Tuner MonsterTV HDUS, HDMI out and a GM45 Express chipset. Upgradeable to 320GB or a Core 2 DUO P8600, T9400 or T9600, the diminutive Japanese PC carries a price of ¥137500 (~$1543.00.)

We just couldn’t let the day go by without mentioning one of our fave movies of the year that was released today. How could you not love “Wall-E?” If you order the Blu-ray 3 disc deluxe version from Amazon, you also get access to BD Live, a free download for a mere $24.99. It comes with the short “Burn-E.” That will keep the little nippers busy while you get ready to tell them that this holiday may be slimmer than the last. You can also order a regular one disc widescreen DVD at a decent $14.99.

Samsung believes that Blu-ray will only last another 5 years and then will be replaced by another format or type of technology such as OLED. Andy Griffiths, Director of Consumer Affairs told Pocket-lint, “We will launch the OLED technology when it’s at a price that will be appealing to the consumer, unfortunately that’s not yet.”

Future Shop is offering $100.00 for your HD DVD player, but this deal comes with a catch. Between March 7 and April 3, you must use that credit on either a Samsung or LS Blu-ray/HD DVD Combo Player. They will also accept those from other retailers in addition to those from its parent company, Best Buy. Considering that Blu-ray players average around $500.00, you might want to hold on to your present one until you have more of a choice and better price point.

Circuit City, not to be outdone, will give store credit for HD players that were purchased in the past ninety days.

Now that Sony has felt the smell of victory, this summer they will be releasing Blu-ray disc players with new features. The BDP-S350 features an ethernet connection for broadband which will be accessible with the software upgrade BD-Live. That will allow download bonuses such as trailers and games The player should carry a MSRP of ~$400.00. The BDP-S550 will already be BD-Live capable for about $100.00 more. Both will feature PIP Bonus View for cast and crew commentary. Note how it is encased in a “we won” color.

Netflix has announced that it will only buy Blu-ray discs and phase out HD by the end of the year. We suspect that is because four of the six major studios have gone the same way. While this looks to be the end of the war, we are just not ready to go out and purchase a new player right away. We hope that Sony finally feels karma for their failed Betamax. We also discovered that Netflix will be only sending out standard DVDs by the end of this month.

Although they previously released Blu-ray players, Panasonic has now come up with a trio of recorders for the Holiday season. The DMR-BW700 features 250GB of space, while the DMR-BW800 supports up to 500GB. The DMR-BW900 can hold up to 1TB of storage on its hard drive for 160 to 380 hours of recording. Capable of storing up to 18 hours of HD onto a 50GB disc, that would make for a heck of a movie marathon. The trio goes on sale in Japan, November 1, with the BW900 at a price of ~$2,600.